In online advertising, internet users are presented with advertisements as they browse the internet using a web browser. Online advertising is an efficient way for advertisers to convey advertising information to potential purchasers of goods and services. It is also an efficient tool for organizations such as non-profits and political organizations to increase their awareness in a target group of people. Ad (advertisement) serving describes the technology and service that places advertisements on web sites. Ad serving technology companies provide software and/or services to web sites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads that will make the website the most money or the advertiser the best return, and monitor progress of different advertising campaigns. Ad servers come in two flavors: local ad servers and third-party or remote ad servers. Local ad servers are typically run by a single publisher and serve ads to that publisher's domains, allowing fine-grained creative, formatting, and content control by that publisher. Remote ad servers can serve ads across domains owned by multiple publishers. They deliver the ads from one central source so that advertisers and publishers can track the distribution of their online advertisements, and have one location for controlling the rotation and distribution of their advertisements across the Web.
Most of the conventional Ads are static in which certain information will be displayed and in some cases includes contact information of the service provider who is advertising. However, a viewer of this ad is not able to know whether the services described in an Ad can be provided in a time relevant way (i.e., within the hour, within the day). Today, for example, if one looks for a local orthodontist surgeon, one would type “local orthodontist surgeon” in for a search field of a browser. The search engine (e.g., Yahoo®) would come back with a list of orthodontist businesses that prescribe to this ads type. Depending upon the browser, a phone number of the business may or may not be clickable to establish the phone contact. If a user is using a Chrome™ browser, and if he/she has installed the Google Voice™ plugin of the case, then one can click the hyperlink, the Google Voice™ plugin will verify the phone number that the user would like to call, then initiate the dial for the user. The user will then be connected to the end point of that phone number—in this case it would likely be the orthodontist office receptionist assuming that person is available. If the user is using a Safari™ browser, the user will also be presented with a phone number, which the user can text to its iPhone using iMessage™. Once the user has received the text, you can dial the orthodontist office from the iPhone and conduct a conversation assuming there is someone who is able to answer the phone on the orthodontist's end. Although sometimes a map is also presented, however, the map is only related to static information such as an address associated with the Ad. It does not provide anything regarding the location of the service provider.
Such a limitation is sometimes unacceptable and problematic to some Ad visitors and/or providers. A visitor would not know whether there is actually a person or support person available and nearby. Similarly, an Ad will run regardless whether there is actually a person or support person available. The lack of a live, time-relevant, connection with an Ad provider may discourage a visitor from interacting with an Ad to inquire further information.